VW

KBA, a German auto industry watchdog, has found illegal emissions control software in Audi’s newest Euro 6 diesel vehicle models, forcing the Volkswagen-owned company to recall more than 127,000 new TDI equipped Audi cars.

The German newspaper Bild am Sonntag is reporting that Audi has been given until February 2nd to submit plans to the KBA regarding software updates for the emissions control systems of the vehicles in question. For its part, Audi has issued a statement saying that, “The engine control software for the vehicles in question will be completely revised, tested and submitted to the KBA for approval.”

Reuters provided a bit more context, stating that, “In November, Audi announced a recall of 5,000 cars in Europe for a software fix after discovering they emitted too much nitrogen oxide, the polluting gas that parent Volkswagen concealed from US regulators in its devastating, $18 billion ‘dieselgate’ scandal … Volkswagen was found in 2015 to have illegally manipulated engine software so that vehicles would meet nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions standards in laboratory testing but not in real-world conditions, where they could emit up to 40 times the permitted levels. Several Audi models were affected and Audi has been accused in media reports of having devised the so-called defeat devices years earlier but not to have installed them in its vehicles at that time. Audi and Volkswagen have never commented on the matter.”

What do you think? Will they get off scot-free, or will the people involved this second time around get even more (well-earned) jail time than the first guys? Let us know what you think in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

“I can emphasize it is the project for 2018,” VW motorsport director Sven Smeets said, in a recent interview with Motorsport. “For the future, we have to do well, and prove the concept is working with an eye to the future in the electric world in motorsport.”

Volkswagen will be joining Honda, Mitsubishi, Rimac, and others in the growing electric class at the historic Hill Climb event. Despite the heavy-hitting nature of its competitors, however, VW wants to do more than show up. VW plans to win. “For us it’s clear when we enter as a works team [it will] always be with cars very closely linked to the product on the road,” Smeets explains. “So, if we can call it e-WRX, it would be one of the first series we could have a proper look at because it would fulfill those requirements.”

Surely, Subaru will have something to say about Smeets’ proposed use of the WRX name- but this is about a race car, not blatant copyright infringement. Here’s hoping VW releases more info. and photos of its Pike’s Peak competitor soon.

James Robert Liang, an engineer at Volkswagen, has been sentenced to 40 months in prison for knowingly working to cover up the fact that the German automaker was cheating on diesel emissions tests. The sentence also carries a fine of $200,000, which was an even steeper punishment than prosecutors had initially requested.

“The conspiracy perpetrated a massive and stunning fraud on the American consumer that attacked and destroyed the very foundation of our (fair market) economic system,” U.S. District Court Judge Sean Cox said during the sentencing hearing in Detroit, citing the fact that VW used the cheat to bypass the expensive urea-based emissions control hardware used by competitors and offer its non-compliant cars at a lower price.

For their part, prosecutors argued that, while Mr. Liang was aware that VW was cheating US emission rules on nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles in the US alone and 11 million vehicles globally, he was “not greeedy or immoral”, he was simply following orders.

Sharp-eyed readers will recognize that as the Nurembrug Defense used by alleged Nazi war criminals to justify their actions after the Allied victory for Germany. Using that logic, then, Mr. Liang’s attorneys should have spent more than a few seconds on the relevant Wikipedia page, because Nuremberg Principle IV states that, “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”

No Clean Diesel from VW

As a quick reminder, Volkswagen has admitted that its TDi “clean diesel” vehicles were sold with illegal software programmed to curb harmful emissions during government lab test conditions after 2006, when Liang and his fellow VW engineers “realized that they could not design a diesel engine that would meet the stricter US emissions standards.”

Independent investigators determined that the cars emitted more than 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide, which can cause permanent respiratory problems in humans. VW got away with the cheat for as many as seven years before government regulators were alerted to it, costing the company billions in EPA fines and causing the company’s stock to plummet.

Just days after German auto executives and political leaders met in Berlin in an apparent bid to save diesel engine technology, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has apparently conceded that diesel’s days are numbered in the wake of the Volkswagen and Mercedes emissions scandals.

Despite German manufacturers committing to contribute to a fund worth 500 million Euro (approx. $590 million) to finance measures to reduce urban pollution, the automakers were unanimous in opposing plans by German cities to emulate London and Paris’ plan to remove ICE cars from urban centers by 2040. Merkel seems to have conceded, however, that such bans are the right approach to reducing harmful emissions. “I don’t want to name an exact year,” she said, but Britain and France’s plans to phase out internal combustion-driven cars by 2040 “were the right approach.”

Volkswagen, Daimler, and BMW confront growing public outrage both for lying about their vehicles’ emissions and for underplaying the health effects of diesel fumes and harmful nitrogen oxides. In the meantime, leaders of both of Germany’s major political parties face criticism that they have been too cozy with carmakers by blocking stricter European Union regulation of diesel emissions and providing tax breaks on diesel fuel. Those tax breaks favoring diesel-engined cars, though, will remain in place in the immediate future.

The future may be electric, but the venerable internal combustion engine still has a lot of tricks up its sleeve to help keep it relevant in the global marketplace. One of the most interesting new features to start showing up in recent years is this: the integrated exhaust manifold.

The basic idea behind this new exhaust manifold tech is pretty simple. You take the usual tubular exhaust manifold that’s bolted to the cylinder head of almost every internal combustion engine (ICE) ever created, and you take the head itself, and cast them out of a single piece. At the same time, a few clever water channels keep coolant flowing around the integrated exhaust manifold (IEM) to keep it cool.

Integrated Exhaust Manifold Cooling

That cooling liquid transfers heat from the exhaust to the rest of the engine. While a technology that increases engine heat may seem like the opposite of what you’d want in a performance engine, the warm coolant spreads across the block and gets the IEM-equipped engine up to temperature much more quickly than a conventional ICE. What that means for you is faster interior warmup times in winter, and better engine oil flow. That translates to better fuel economy, lower emissions, and vastly increased engine longevity.

If you’re smart, you’ve already dumbed that down in your head to “an integrated exhaust manifold makes cold starts pretty much go away”. If you think that, you’re right- but wait, there’s more!

To explain the integrated exhaust manifold and some of the gains tech like this can have in extended-range plug-in hybrids (vehicles that spend a lot of time in a “cold start” condition, in other words), the guys from Engineering Explained put together a great, 6-minute long video that explores the IEM found in the latest turbocharged Volkswagen engines. You can check that video out, below …

Engineering Explained | VW’s Water-cooled Exhaust

… then let us know what you think of the IEM’s potential to squeeze a few more percentage points’ worth of efficiency from the good-ol’ internal combustion engine in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

In case you missed it, Volkswagen cost itself tens of billions of dollars back in 2015 by fudging the numbers on EPA and European emissions tests with its Bluemotion “clean diesel” engines. In the aftermath of that scandal, one would expect that any new diesel engine from VW would come under intense scrutiny- and that’s what makes the claims surrounding the company’s latest 1.5 liter diesel so interesting.

For starters, there’s the fuel economy. VW claims its latest diesel-powered Golf will go an astounding 61.4 miles for every gallon of diesel you feed. Yes, that’s on the more lenient European testing cycle, but it’s still a huge number.

The key to those big fuel economy numbers is a new engine-off coasting feature that- like existing stop-start technologies that cut the engine off at a stop- shut off the engine while the car is coasting. That means that, if you have your VW Golf TSi’s cruise control set to 68MPH (for example), and you find yourself going down a long hill, the car’s computer will shut the engine off during the descent. Once the engine is needed again to maintain a constant speed, it starts back up. A compact, lithium-ion battery pack keeps the car’s electric accessories going while the car coasts, extending the car’s “coasting range” relative to systems that lack the additional battery backup.

In testing trim, the new 1.5L Volkswagen Bluemotion diesel supposedly produces 129 HP with tailpipe emissions of 104g/km on the New European Driving Cycle.

Yes, I said “supposedly”. With VW’s past history of clever cheats that skirt the edges of legality, I think that’s a fair addition to the above sentence- but it might not be. What do you guys think? Has Dieselgate taught VW that wheaters never win, or do you think they’ve just gotten smarter about who to bribe? Let us know what you think, in the comments.

The fallout surrounding Volkswagen’s emissions control cheating scandal continues to accumulate. Just weeks after the VW brand Audi was caught cheating emissions tests with both diesel andgasoline powered Audi models, the government of South Korea has announced that it plans to file criminal charges against five former and current executives at Volkswagen Group’s South Korean unit.

According to Automotive News reports, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said that it would ask prosecutors to investigate VW’s headquarters, its South Korean unit, and five former and current executives, alleging that Volkswagen made “false, exaggerated, or deceptive” claims in its ads. If the charges hit home, possible punishment for the VW execs could range from jail terms of up to two years or fines of up to 150 million won.

For its part, Audi-Volkswagen Korea (AVK) said that it was, “committed to rebuilding trust with the authorities and with customers and other stakeholders in Korea,” in a statement released earlier this week.

No word, yet, on how VW plans to deal with the criminal charges heading their way in a number of international courts- but that’s never stopped us from flaming them brutally in the comments section! Head on down to the bottom of the page and let us know what you think the courts should do with VW execs who knowingly participated in the scandal- and don’t worry about playing nice when you do.

The multi-billion dollar Volkswagen “dieselgate” scandal surrounding the brand’s cheating on US emissions tests continues to generate fallout. The latest victim? That would be the 2017 Mercedes-Benz C300d. And that’s not the only Mercedes model to be hit by changes in the way the EPA certifies vehicles.

For Mercedes-Benz, delays caused by new EPA policies could force a number of changes to the automaker’s US lineup. The C-Class, GLC, GLE, and GLS diesel models have all been pushed back for 2017- and it’s not clear if they’ll be back for 2018, either.

For those of you keeping score, then, that means Volkswagen’s diesels are out. Audi’s diesels are out. Mercedes’ diesels are, apparently, on the way out now, too. As it stands, Jaguar is the only automaker ready to sell 2017 model year diesels in the US. Sure, BMW and GM (nee Chevy) are both anticipating their diesels to be cleared for sale before the end of the year. But that still just leaves Jaguar in the here and now. One brand, compared with nine brands offering twenty diesel models in the US this time last year

Nice job, VW.

What do you guys think? Is this an example of EPA regulations run amok, or is it finally time to admit that the testing procedures are- and have always been- fundamentally flawed? Let us know what you think in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

10 years ago, VW started building a new, state of the art manufacturing facility to build the Phaeton. That car was to be cpmpany chairman Ferndinand Piech’s crowning achievement. He dearly wanted Volkswagen to have an überwagen, a sumptuous, top of the line luxury sedan that was the equal of anything Mercedes or BMW had to offer. The Phaeton would be fitted with the insanely complex W 12 engine that powered the Bugatti Veyron.

In the wake of the devastating diesel emissions scandal that rocked Volkswagen, many expected the company to shift its focus away from diesels and on to plug-in cars. While VW is pushing electric and hybrid tech, it has recently revealed plans to push forward with hydrogen fuel cell technology as well- and it will use the Audi brand to do so.

“I know there’s a big discussion ‘why fuel cells?’ if everything in the future will be [battery] electric,” said Audi’s new development chief, Stefan Knirsch, to a group of reporters at the brand’s new headquarters. “At some point there will be a charging infrastructure and the electric ranges will increase, so who needs fuel cell cars? But we don’t see it so black and white at the moment.”

It’s a fair question, especially knowing the type of anti-fuel-cell backlash the move is likely to have in the comments sections of sites like Cleantechnica. Still, Knirsch believes that fuel cell vehicles have an advantage over fully electric cars because the much smaller battery found in fuel cell vehicles is not just substantially cheaper to build, but also far lighter- and less weight means improved vehicle handling and performance.

Audi Fuel Cell | It’s Coming

There hasn’t been a specific launch date announced for the upcoming Audi fuel cell vehicle, but one thing we do know: it will be a crossover-style SUV. “We chose the body style for battery electric since we got very clear feedback from our markets that is what they need to gain volumes (including fleets) and it’s also true that you can ask higher prices for such a car,” explains Knirsch. “We will adopt a similar approach for fuel cell cars.”

Knirsch said Audi is already looking into the problem of procuring hydrogen as a means to cut off any anti-hydrogen backlash. Currently, Audi’s plant in Werlte, Germany, produces hydrogen through electrolysis, an energy-intensive method by which an electric current is run across two poles submerged in water, splitting the liquid’s molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Still, the company remains optimistic that new advances are coming. “We are certain that we will be able to offer hydrogen produced in a CO2-neutral way in the future,” Knirsch said.

What do you guys think? Will a hydrogen-powered product line from Audi help the brand overcome the diesel-induced black eye, or blah blah [insert something about the Hindenburg here] the humanity? Let us know what you think in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

Volkswagen will launch an updated version of its Up! fuel economy champion for 2017. And, when it debuts next month at the Geneva auto show, it will debut with 89 turbo-fed horsepower and nearly 120 lb-ft of TQ. (!?)

Volkswagen’s diminutive Up! commuter has always been a Gas 2 favorite, being available in a number of green-ish variants that range from CNG and biomethane combustion to fully electric options. Cool as those Up!s were, you could never really say that the 54 HP Up! cars seemed like they’d be a blast to drive … with a 50% bump in power, though?

That might be OK!

In addition to more HP and TQ, the latest VW Up!, VW also changed the bumpers and lights, made smartphone integration easier and upgraded your stereo options with a few new units. One of those is found in the Up!Beats special edition model, which features a 300-watt sound system and special badging/interior graphics.

2017 VW Up! Beats Special Edition Interior

As for the rest of the Up!s, they get seven new colors (Teal Blue, Coral Red, Costa Azul, Honey Yellow, Edelweiss, Blueberry and Savanna Gold), bringing the total to thirteen. The options list includes matching interiors, contrasting roofs, colored alloys, and a bunch of decal sets to make your Volkswagen Up! yours.

You can check out a few pics of the Savanna Gold, below, then let us know if you think a power boost is what it would take to make the Up! relevant to US buyers in the comments section.

2017 VW Up! Turbo Power

Volkswagen chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch told the press in Wolfsburg Friday that the whole diesel emissions cheating mess started back in 2005. That’s when company’s engineers were unable to make its new 2.0-liter EA189 diesel engine comply with the limits for NOx emissions imposed by the EPA and, at the time, US rules for diesels were considerably more stringent than European standards. “Looking back, we regrettably have to recognize that the developers involved in the EA 189 project quite simply could not find a way to meet the tougher NOx limits in the United States by permissible means,” he said. “Or, at least they could not find a way they felt at the time to be meaningful and that fitted the time frame and the budget they had been given.”

According to Automotive News, the first cars sold in the US with the EA189 engine were the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta sedan and Sportwagen. Nearly 500,000 of the diesel-engined VWs were sold in the US, touted as being almost as fuel efficient but less expensive than Toyota’s hot-selling Prius. They won the “Green Car of the Year” award and were widely praised by the automotive press.

The original EA 189 diesel used a novel “lean NOx trap” exhaust system to reduce NOx emissions. Other competitors trying to join in the “clean diesel” craze in the US used a urea-based exhaust treatment system that was effective but more expensive. Volkswagen switched to its own urea system for its 2012 cars, but the offending software continued to be used. Customers continued to rave that their diesel-powered cars actually got far better fuel economy than advertised.

“Later down the line, when the effective technical solutions to reduce NOx became available, these solutions were not in fact used as they should have been done, apparently in the mistaken interest of customers,” Poetsch said. “As a result, NOx levels on the test bench were particularly low but they were significantly higher on the road. With hindsight, this all sounds almost a little banal, but that is perhaps why we find the whole thing so painful.” He said the cheating software went against the values of Volkswagen and all of its 600,000 employees.

“We still do not know whether these people involved in this issue from 2005 to the present day were fully aware of the risks they were taking and of the potential damage they could expose the company to,” said Poetsch, “but that’s something else that we’re going to find out.” Volkswagen says 9 managers who “may” have been involved in the emissions manipulations have been suspended.

But that’s not the whole story, is it? Until last spring, Volkswagen was run with an iron fist by Ferdinand Piech. He was shoved aside by Martin Winterkorn, a long-time Volkswagen employee widely regarded as Germany’s best engineer. Now Winterkorn himself has been relieved of his command and another highly regarded engineer, Ulrich Hackenberg, has left the company unexpectedly.

The German government is pursuing a criminal investigation of the company. Any or all of those men may yet be called to account for their actions. For German authorities, the question will be a Nixonian, “What did they know and when did they know it?”

One person who thinks he knows what happened is perennial auto industry gadfly Bob Lutz. He told Road & Track that Ferdinand Piech’s time at the head of Volkswagen was a “reign of terror … where performance was driven by fear and intimidation.” Lutz calls him a ruthless leader who workers would do anything to please — including breaking the rules. “I imagine that at some point, the VW engineering team said to Piech, ‘We don’t know how to pass the emissions test with the hardware we have,’ ” Lutz wrote. “The reply, in that culture, most likely was, ‘You will pass! I demand it! Or I’ll find someone who can do it!’ ”

Remember that statement by Poetsch, the one that said engineers “could not find a way they felt at the time to be meaningful and that fitted the time frame and the budget they had been given”?

Chances are, the time frame and the budget he is referring to were dictated by none other than Ferdinand Piech. Those with long memories may remember Piech strutting about 10 years ago telling anyone who would listen that his company’s diesel engines didn’t need no stinking urea injection system. Obviously, they did!

Volkswagen sales went over a cliff in November. According to Automotive News, VW sales last month dropped 25 percent to 23,882 vehicles. The only month with worse numbers this year was January, when most of America was entombed in massive snow drifts and couldn’t get out of the house. It was the steepest monthly decline for the Volkswagen brand since the global recession of 2008/09.

“Volkswagen is working tirelessly on an approved remedy for the affected TDI vehicles,” McNabb said. “During this time we would like to thank our dealers and customers for their continued patience and loyalty.”

We’re not sure what patience McNabb is referring to here. Sales of the once popular Jetta were off 23 percent and deliveries of the Passat midsize sedan fell a whopping 60 percent. There were a few bright spots, however. Sales of Volkswagen smallest crossover, the Tiguan, surged 88 percent, while both the e-Golf and the GTI hatchback were up 3 percent overall.

Audi’s sister brand, Audi, has seen its sales growth slow a bit since the summer months, but Audi of America chief Mark Del Rosso says he still expects his company to set a new record for sales in the US this year. He thinks Audi could break 200,000 sales for the first time. Audi relies less on the sale of diesel engine vehicles in the US market than Volkswagen does, but the offending V-6 diesel engine used in the Taureg is also used in Audi Q5, Q7, A6, A7 and A8L vehicles. Americans in general do not associate diesel power with luxury automobiles the way European buyers do.

Volkswagen has submitted proposals to the EPA and CARB to fix the almost half million non-conforming diesel cars it sold in the US over the past 7 years. It is still waiting for those agencies to either approve or reject those suggestions.

One consequence of the Volkswagen diesel cheating scandal is that the company is slashing costs in order to pay for fixing its non-conforming cars as well as the fines and penalties that are sure to come. That means development of the next VW Phaeton has been put on hold. It won’t go on sale now until 2020 at the earliest.

The company says the Phaeton will be “the flagship of the brand’s profile over the next decade” and will feature “pure electric drive with long distance capability and next-generation connectivity and assistance systems”. It will share its platform architecture, drive system and battery technology with the upcoming Audi Q6 e-tron, according to Autocar.

The Q6 e-tron uses three electric motors with a total of 496 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque. One motor powers the front wheels, while each rear wheel gets its own motor. The arrangement allows for precise control of the amount of power transmitted to the wheels in a process known as “torque vectoring.” When it finally goes on sale, it will be offered as an alternative to the Tesla Model S and the Mercedes S Class.

The Phaeton was first introduced in 2002. It is assembled by hand in a special factory in Dresden by technicians wearing white uniforms and sometimes white gloves. The model features hand-selected wood veneers in the interior and seats adjustable in 18 different ways. The Phaeton was always the pet project of former Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand Piech, whose autocratic style may be at the heart of diesel emissions cheating scandal. Piech was forced out in April of 2015 by Martin Winterkorn, who himself has since been let go as a result of the cheating scandal.

“There is always the element of the Phaeton being the answer to a question no one ever asked,” Tim Urquhart, a London-based analyst for IHS Automotive tells Bloomberg. “Who wants a VW limousine?” The $100,000 car reached its sales peak in 2011 and has seen its popularity sink slowly downward ever since. But for Volkswagen’s desire to have a car that can compete with the Tesla Model S, the Phaeton probably would have slipped into obscurity by now, an automotive anomaly whose time never came and is already long gone.

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The content produced by this site is for entertainment purposes only. Opinions and comments published on this site may not be sanctioned by, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sustainable Enterprises Media, Inc., its owners, sponsors, affiliates, or subsidiaries.

The content produced by this site is for entertainment purposes only. Opinions and comments published on this site may not be sanctioned by, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sustainable Enterprises Media, Inc., its owners, sponsors, affiliates, or subsidiaries.